


chocolate cake

by sitronsommerfugl



Series: mischief [27]
Category: Ski Jumping RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 16:51:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18167720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sitronsommerfugl/pseuds/sitronsommerfugl





	chocolate cake

It shouldn’t have been this difficult.  
Lars knew that he and Anders made a fantastic team. He knew it for sure, because they are twins. They had known each other for ever and sometimes they even finished each others thoughts. They knew each other so well they could move in tandem in stillness, communication just with looks. The twins also had proved their closeness and their team skills in countless 'capture the flag events' with their friends. They had defeated them with a chaotic finesse that seemed to be impossible to match.  
And yeah, bickering and stubbornness were always going to be present between two people as volatile as they both were, but for Lars, that only made it better– because what one missed the other would catch, and together, the twins were sure, they could do anything.  
They were the perfect team.  
The perfect couple.  
So why … couldn't they bake?  
Why couldn't they bake a simple cake?  
It should have been child's play. Literal child's play, because Lars remembered that he had witnessed his sisters baking. So why couldn't they do it? They had a recipe, they had the ingredients and both of them should be able to read the instructions.  
But despite all that, it was just … not working.  
Not working at all.  
Everything that could have gone wrong had done so in the most spectacular way imaginable. Both twins were a complete mess, covered in flour and eggs and ... well, everything else that was meant to be in the bowls rather than streaked through their hair or on their faces. They were arguing with more real bite than they had ever, and the kitchen of their mothers looked like a war zone  
Lars supposed they should just be relieved that they hadn’t yet set the oven on fire.  
Yet.  
The only problem seemed to be that neither of them had ever actually tried to bake a cake before. But the twins had been bored out of their minds. Their so called friends were all doing their own thing, and no one was up for some fun. They could have accompanied their poor family to miniature golf, but they were both of the opinion that they would first started to play any kind of golf if there would be no chance of getting laid anymore.  
As told, the twins were bored and that was recipe for disaster more than anything else ever could be. Anders had suggested that they both should learn a new skill and Lars had thought that his twin might had been joking when he said, „We could learn to crochet or … maybe … to write some cheesy poems … or we could bake a cake ...“ The twins had looked at each other with vicious smiles growing on their identical faces, a challenge issued and accepted.  
There was something to be said about a competitive nature, because that was all it took for them to get the notion in their heads that, come hell or high water, they would prove that they could bake a cake.  
Still, the boys had been sensible enough not to go overboard, and chose a recipe that wasn’t too ambitious. It was a simple chocolate, which was fine, because both brothers loved chocolate. And last but not least, chocolate cake is so much of a staple that surely, surely it was something that they would both be able to manage.  
The recipe was one from one of their mothers books. It was marked with ‘Perfect Chocolate Cake for beginners’. The boys believed that they had made a good choice and in the beginning, it was really fun. The first lot of flour to be spread around was the result of Lars flicking a bit in his brother’s hair when Anders had his back turned, and the dark smudge of cocoa on Lars' cheek had come from Anders' fingers as the younger twin had leaned in to kiss him afterward when he’d seen Lars' bright smile, not a touch of true irritation showing as they kissed gentle and sweet.  
But in retro perspective, that could have been their problem. Despite it starting as a brotherly challenge, they’d gone into it so sure that they could complete the task with a certain ease ... And that simply hadn’t been the case.  
“I don’t think we can fix this, Lars,” Anders said, glaring down at the mess in the bowl like it had insulted him personally. “I know we can,” Lars replied, trying to think positive. “I think we just put in too many eggs … I have lost count while you had tickled me … I believe … all we have to do is add some more flour—” “I'm sure … that it does not work that way!” Anders wrinkled his nose in disdain but Lars just shrugged „And you happen to know?“ “The components are perfectly balanced, this recipe is designed for the best outcome. If we simply followed what it says exactly, then we would have made the cake by now.” Anders licked his lips but Lars just snorted and reached for the flour, the cocoa and the bag of sugar „Yeah … on your head it will be ...“  
„No!“ Anders hissed, pushing his hand away and sending the poor sugar scattering everywhere. “You can’t just pour it in, if we’re going to do it this way then we’re going to have to measure the proper amounts exactly. It was this foolishness that got us into trouble in the first place ...” “This isn’t one of your fucking experiments, Andi,” the elder twin countered. “This is a cake. A fucking chocolate cake! It’s not going to explode if there’s one grain of sugar too many, and more sugar will only make it taste better anyway ...” “That is not the way this works—” “I’m pretty sure it is!” Lars stated. “Sugar makes it sweet, right? We don’t want it to be bitter, we have to balance out all the extra cocoa. And I am the older twin we do as I say!” Anders paused, and turned to his brother with narrowed eyes. “What extra cocoa?”  
“Well…” Lars offered a sheepish smile. “I thought the cocoa was chocolate, so I might have thrown in some more when you weren’t looking? Except then, I licked my fingers and– hn.” He shuddered. And generally, the elder twin didn’t even have that much of a sweet-tooth– he took his coffee as black as it came, instead of Anders who loved everything as sweet as possible. But when you’re expecting chocolate, and then your mouth is assaulted with the taste of something like that …  
Just.  
Well, it’s not great, that’s all.  
“Lars,” Anders groaned, running a hand through his dark blonde hair and streaking it with even more batter. He didn’t seem to mind– probably he had already realized that it couldn’t get any worse at this point, anyway.  
“I’m sorry, okay!” Lars tried. “I just, I wanted this to be the best cake ever ...” “It would. If we had just followed the instructions … as I had insisted ...” Anders started but stopped as his brother growled darkly. “You know … The instructions are shit. What does it even mean to ‘separate’ an egg? What, do we make it sit in the naughty corner? Give it its own private carton?”

Though Lars' determination was still at a high, his confidence had certainly waned a little. But that didn’t mean that either of them wanted to stop trying. Because sure, it had started as a bit of fun, just something to blot out their boredom, but as time had gone on the cake had become a matter of pride. Neither Lars nor Anders had encountered a challenge that they could not beat, and they were either going to get this cake made or they were going to go down swinging.  
He knew that in this, they could ask for aid and no one would look down on them … No one, of course, save themselves. Because yeah, they could present the cake to their family and tell them that they had made it without help, that they had accomplished something they could be proud of ... but then, they would know, and that just didn’t sit well with either of their self-reliant temperaments.  
Then again, at this point, if they didn’t ask for help they weren’t going to end up with a cake at all, which, honestly, would be sadder than any loss of pride. And looking down at the mess in their bowl, Lars wasn’t sure that even Yvonne’s knowledge would be able to help them fix it. The thing in the bowl dark yellow. It was lumpy and stretchy and did not look at all appetizing, and really, it was beginning to seem like starting again was going to be their only option– and then there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just end up making all the same mistakes.  
Lars' breath escaped him in a heavy sigh, and he reached out to curl his sticky fingers around Anders' equally sticky wrist. “Hey,” he said, the words feeling wrong on his tongue despite the comfort that he hoped they would provide. “It’s okay.” Anders' dark lips pressed together in a thin line, and his twin could tell that he was this close to snapping. Because it wasn’t okay, not really. Giving up was in neither of their natures, and to do so now ... to admit defeat and surrender to a cake … to a fucking chocolate cake for beginners … that was a bitter pill.  
Both searching for and offering warmth, Lars used his hold on his brother's wrist to pull him close, wrapping his arms around Anders' shoulders and coaxing his head to rest on his shoulder. They held each other tightly in their shameful defeat, taking support where they could.  
Maybe they were a tiny bit overreacting, but it was just… they had been so sure that they could do this, that this was something they could learn and conquer as a team. To fail that spectacularly didn’t hurt just because they had failed, but because… Well, Lars didn’t know for sure how it was for his twin. But he had just wanted to have fun baking a cake with his twin, the person he loved most in the world.  
But standing there in the middle of the debris, holding on to Anders and just… being close, everything about it just didn’t seem to matter so much. Their heated arguments about the cake faded away, all the blame was no longer relevant, and they both relaxed into each other. Lars let his cheek rest atop Anders' head, and smiled as his brother turned his face into the curve of his neck.  
And then Anders' tongue darted out to lick at the skin of Lars' neck, and a laugh bubbled up his throat. Lars hoped that Anders had managed to find a bit of sugar rather than a smear of raw egg, but it made him grin nonetheless. Then the younger looked up with a smile of his own, and Lars leaned in to brush their lips together in a kiss. It was like their wounded pride melted away at the touch, and they lost themselves in the gentle press of their bodies, in the light touches of hands and lips that stayed chaste, but were more than enough to chase the dark frustration away. After all, so long as they had each other, then nothing else could stop them from enjoying the way that they matched.  
And in the face of that, the stupid cake didn’t even matter.  
“What on Earth is going on in here? Lars? Anders?” Both twins remained entwined even as their kiss haltingly broke, and they turned rosy-cheeked to look for the sudden source of interruption.  
Their mother was standing over in the living room, clearly having just arrived back from the whole epic miniature golf court. She was wearing gray shorts and still had the golf club in her hands while she arched a single brow in a mix of incredulity and fear.  
“We’re baking a cake,” answered Anders brightly.


End file.
